Biotelemetry (or medical telemetry) involves the application of

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', 'far off', an ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, and other

health care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

to remotely

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, Wes ...

various

vital signs Vital signs (also known as vitals) are a group of the four to six most crucial medical signs that indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions. These measurements are taken to help assess the general physical health of ...

of ambulatory patients.

Application

The most common usage for biotelemetry is in dedicated cardiac care telemetry units or step-down units in hospitals. Although virtually any physiological signal could be transmitted, application is typically limited to cardiac monitoring and

SpO2 Oxygen saturation is the fraction of oxygen-saturated haemoglobin relative to total haemoglobin (unsaturated + saturated) in the blood. The human body requires and regulates a very precise and specific balance of oxygen in the blood. Normal art ...

. Biotelemetry is increasingly being used to understand animals and wildlife by remotely measuring physiology, behaviour and energetic status. It can be used to understand the way that animals migrate, and also the environment that they are experiencing by measuring the abiotic variables, and how it is affecting their physiological status by measuring biotic variables such as heart rate and temperature. Telemetry systems can either be attached externally to animals, or placed internally, with the types of transmission for the devices dependent on the environment that the animal moves in. For example, to study the movement of swimming animals signals using radio transmission or ultrasonic transmission are often used but land based or flying animals can be tracked with

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

and satellite transmissions.

Components of a biotelemetry system

A typical biotelemetry system comprises: * Sensors appropriate for the particular signals to be monitored * Battery-powered, Patient worn transmitters * A Radio Antenna and Receiver * A display unit capable of concurrently presenting information from multiple patients

History

Some of the first uses of biotelemetry systems date to the early

space race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...

, where physiological signals obtained from animals or human passengers were transmitted back to Earth for analysis (the name of the medical device manufacturer Spacelabs Healthcare is a reflection of their start in 1958 developing biotelemetry systems for the early U.S. space program). Animal biotelemetry has been used since at least the 1980s. Animal biotelemetry has now advanced to not only understand the physiology and movement of free ranging animals, but also how different animals interact, for example, between predators and prey.

Current trends

Because of the crowding of the

radio spectrum The radio spectrum is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with frequencies from 3 Hz to 3,000 GHz (3 THz). Electromagnetic waves in this frequency range, called radio waves, are widely used in modern technology, particula ...

due to the recent introduction of

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...

in the United States and many other countries, the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) as well as similar agencies elsewhere have recently begun to allocate dedicated frequency bands for exclusive biotelemetry usage, for example, the

Wireless Medical Telemetry Service Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WMTS) is a wireless service specifically defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for transmission of data related to a patient's health ( biotelemetry). It was created in 2000 ...

(WMTS). The

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains ju ...

has designated the American Society for Healthcare Engineering of the

American Hospital Association The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a health care industry trade group. It includes nearly 5,000 hospitals and health care providers. The organization, which was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1898, with offices in Chicago, Illinois and W ...

(ASHE/AHA) as the frequency coordinator for the WMTS. In addition, there are many products that utilize commonly available standard

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

devices such as

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

and IEEE

802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer c ...

References

External links